Monday, February 13, 2012
HISTORY
Today's favorite gay film was
This is a good movie and it also pulls some punches. It is the first Hollywood product that confronted HIV/AIDS directly, lesions and all.
This is still the time when kaposi sarcoma and pneumocystis were killing people left and right.
I did not see it when it came out. I am not sure why. I think that there was enough of it around me and I didn't want to wallow in a film version.
But the director Johnathan Demme does a great job, raising the mundane script to a loftier level from being a mere courtroom drama (a copout really). Tom Hanks presence helps. I don't like him much but his stuff works here.
Far too little is seen of the lover Anthony Banderas or the family which includes Joanne Woodward.
Denzel Washington is the homophobic plaintiff attorney and the byplay between Hanks and him is pretty good.
Look, enough with the nitpicking. It is a good job of story telling and politicking and not just a bone thrown to "the gays". You can see where the rough edges are sanded off. Three chaste kisses and no sex at all (people with HIV had sex down to the end) misses the whole point of homo. But the money guys have to have a safer bet and this is a good effort. It paved the way.
As just a movie, there are a lot of teary moments and it is very involving.
I don't want to see it again but I am glad that I finally did. A 3 out of Netflix5.
